If Morpheus stretched out his hand and offered you a choice between the red pill or the blue pill, which would you choose? Neither, because it’s sci-fi nonsense the pragmatists would argue. Regardless of your subjective considerations towards The Matrix movies, the notions presented touch on a rather unique nerve in modern society. Are we designing artificial intelligences (AI’s), that will exceed our own brilliance as a species? Perhaps, but who could possibly know until we are past the 11th hour. The following list speculates a few possible areas in which AI could render humans somewhat obsolete.

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Deepfakes Are Here To Stay

What is Deepfake? Essentially, Deepfake is an artificial intelligence in the form of an algorithm that has ‘deep’ learning capabilities, specifically pertaining to the superimposition of faces onto digital images and videos. The algorithm learns the various features of one face, and superimposes it over another through a process of encoding and decoding – compiled from hundreds to thousands of existing images.

How this affects us, is that Deepfake has the potential to entirely personalize digital advertising. With the majority of the first world utilizing some form of social media or another, there is a plethora of existing images from which advertising agencies can generate a personalized advertisement for a product, and theoretically place you with members of your social group in the advertisement image/video – visually depicting you with the product.

Surprisingly, celebrities have much to gain from a future with Deepfake, in that they could potentially increase their income by merely consenting to the use of their likeness in promoting a brand or product, without having to actively partake in any stage of production. All of this however, is attained at a moral price – absolute distrust in digital images/videos.

For a more detailed account of Deepfake follow the link: https://hackernoon.com/exploring-deepfakes-20c9947c22d9

We Will Become Chatbots When We Die

A chatbot is an AI computer programme that mimics human conversation. Dr Toby Walsh, Professor of artificial intelligence at The University of New South Wales, has prophesised that in the future when we die we will live on as chatbots, and as soon as 2050. Chatbots are already very real, and with the boom of social media in full flight, messages and voice recordings are in abundance for AI programmes to analyse and learn from. What this presumably means for us, is that once we die, a chatbot can be uploaded with data to successfully imitate our idiosyncratic ways of talking via text and speech. The purpose of this is to possibly aid grieving families, by having a chatbot that speaks near identically to the loved one lost – made possible by the immense amounts of data produced through media platforms.

Your Cell Phone Will Become a Lie Detector

You thought the flashlight on your smart phone was useful? Thanks to developmental neuroscientist kang Lee, and the University of Toronto, the future holds even more excitement for mobile phones. Lee’s start-up, Nuralogix, has developed an image processing software called Transdermal Optical Imaging, which maps and tracks changes of blood flow in the face. The software operates by analysing changes in skin colour to detect various human emotions via an image or video. The data is then compared to standardized blood-flow signatures, and reports its findings back to the user. Real world applications for mobile software such as this are numerous, but Lee speculates that it will still be a few years until a phone app version is available.

To read further follow the link: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/mg73nx/nuralogix-smartphone-lie-detector-toronto

Intelligent Sex Robots

Sex is one of, if not, the most universally interesting topic to humans. Which is why it is not surprising to find, that AI is making its way into sex technology. We are still nowhere close to creating a fully functional sex robot that mimics human emotion, sensation or even capable of moving its own limbs, but in the near future we can expect a sex robot that learns what its partner enjoys, its eyes can track where its partner is looking, and perhaps even analyse how and when to apply various pressures. This is all highly intriguing, and perhaps an avenue in the future to reduce rape statistics and overpopulation, but realistically the applications are far more perverse than that.

Follow the link for a detailed account of sex robots: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160209-the-truth-about-sex-robots

Robots Will Endanger Our Jobs and We’ll End Up With a Universal Basic Income

According to the UN, massive growth of Al in the workplace, is a trend that could see up to two-thirds of developing economies jobs in jeopardy. Why developing economies? Because advanced countries have already undergone a massive robotic atomization of industry, but are still susceptible to job loss nonetheless. Elon Musk stated that perhaps in the future we will end up collecting some form of universal salary, suggesting that the robots (AI) will be responsible for most of our daily work. Sounds a little bit like a Marxist utopia, but perhaps only mundane jobs will become entirely automated, ascribing the interesting positions to humans.

Follow the link for more information: https://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/10/robots-endanger-up-to-two-thirds-of-emerging-economy-jobs-un.html

We Will End Up in the ‘Oasis’

The ‘Oasis’ is a reference to the movie Ready Player One, it is a virtual world where people can indulge their deepest desires through the control of their avatar, and interact with other avatars alike. This is not a fantastically far-fetched future scenario, with VR gaming on the rise and a rapid evolution of in-game AI. However, the probable dangers with such an innovation could be severe addiction to the virtual world, nefarious (unpunishable) online activity and loss of interest in reality. This is almost certain to become a future reality of gamming – best we become aware of its potential risks.

To read about the current state of VR compared to the ‘Oasis’ follow the link: https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/31/does-ready-player-one-reveal-the-future-of-vr/

Automated Postal and Delivery Services

Warehouses already implement automated sorting systems and storage, but what about a system that is entirely operated by AI – from click to Delivery. The US postal service uses AI in their aggregation centers that process parcels. In numerous warehouses, AI is used to organize and store parcels. Some delivery companies are researching self-driving delivery vehicles and drones to revolutionize parcel delivery. It is evident that the technology needed to completely automate deliveries is already at our disposal, and will undoubtedly replace the ‘archaic’ manual systems soon.

Follow the link to read more about ‘the new delivery paradigm’: https://newsroom.accenture.com/news/ai-robotics-and-augmented-reality-technologies-are-shaping-the-future-of-posts-and-delivery-companies-today-accenture-report-shows.htm